A Street Café is the spot for cheap breakfast in Santa Maria

During a busy Thursday afternoon lunch at the A Street Café in Santa Maria, as servers bused tables and diners chatted about politics or the weather, I noticed an older man ask to speak with the person who cooked his meal.

He and his dining companion were working on stacks of pancakes along with bacon and eggs, slowly munching their way through their plates. When the waitress brought out the cook, he started beaming. He told her the bacon was perfectly cooked and was the best he’d ever had. The reaction seems to be a common one.

click to enlarge A Street Café is the spot for cheap breakfast in Santa Maria
PHOTO BY REBECCA ROSE
HEARTY START: The breakfast options at the A Street Café include breakfast burritos, eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, home fries, and other combinations, all for $5 and under.

The A Street Café is a special venture of VTC Enterprises, which provides services such as job training to people with intellectual and physical disabilities. The café serves as a training facility of sorts, preparing workers for jobs such as dishwashing, busing, and serving. I spent almost five years doing the same kind of work with a similar organization for adults with disabilities before I ran off to become a famous writer (OK, still working on that). The issue of job training for persons with disabilities has always been near and dear to my heart; it’s one of the most important steps to living an independent life, and a big part of that is support from the community.

The café features a breakfast and lunch menu where items top out at $5. Nothing is more expensive. In a food landscape where chefs not too far from us are charging $85 for snail shells filled with a thimbleful of soup, I’d say that’s a pretty good bargain.

For about $8, you can get a Big Mac meal at McDonald’s and feel like crap for both supporting a soulless corporate ghoul and filling your body with toxic waste, or you can get a burger and fries for $5 at the A Street Café made with fresh ingredients that supports a great project.

Their lunch menu features a hamburger or cheeseburger, and sandwiches such as tuna salad, egg salad, turkey, ham, and grilled cheese. Sides include potato salad, fries, green salad, and a homemade soup. A Street Café’s menu is all in the vein of faithful comfort food, unencumbered by all the properties of culinary embellishment or exaggeration (this is mostly due to the need to keep food costs low to support the program).

So fine, it’s a great bargain, Rebecca, but how does the burger taste?  Honestly, it was delicious. The meat was seasoned nicely and cooked well and it was stacked with fresh veggies on a toasted bun. I doubled up on orders because I knew portions would be a little small and I thought I may as well get extra. But I didn’t need to.

A Street Café is the spot for cheap breakfast in Santa Maria
A FOR AMAZING: The A Street Café at VTC Enterprises is open from 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for breakfast and lunch and is located at 2445 A St., Santa Maria. More info: 928-5000.

I actually like that it’s a smaller portion. If you’re trying to eat sensibly and you get a craving for a greasy, comforting burger, the A Street burger will hit that craving but won’t leave you feeling like an overinflated balloon. The sizes were just right and probably more in the size of what we should be eating, rather than giant triple-stacked burgers loaded with 12 kinds of meats and topped with a baked potato or whatever.

My other order was the Aztec chicken, part of their daily specials menu. I’m told the meatloaf is so popular it sells out almost instantly. For $5, it was a good version of a baked chicken enchilada casserole, with beans and rice on the side. But the burger was the true diva of the meal for me. I can’t forget to mention the fries either, which are basically perfect.

Other specials featured during the week are chicken pot pie, Salisbury steak, and cheese tortellini, as well as an antipasto salad and a chicken tortilla soup. A lot of the customers are seniors on a fixed income, so expect that some of seasonings (especially salt) are going to be on the lighter side. (Don’t worry; there are seasonings such as salt and hot sauce on the table.)

click to enlarge A Street Café is the spot for cheap breakfast in Santa Maria
PHOTO BY REBECCA ROSE
SWEET TREATS: In addition to daily menu specials such as cheese tortellini and meatloaf, A Street Café offers a treat for Friday morning breakfasts: glazed cinnamon rolls for $2.

But what the café is really known for and what they do best is breakfast. Cheese omelettes, eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and breakfast burritos are all featured on the menu, again for $5 or less.

I had bacon, sausage, and eggs over easy along with biscuits and gravy, and I grabbed some breakfast burritos to share with my colleagues (journalists are always hungry). The egg dishes are served with a choice of sides including home fries, hash browns, fresh fruit, or pancakes with toast or an English muffin.

Just like the gentleman I observed the day before, I can confidently say this was expertly cooked bacon. Thick and not too crispy, it was a perfect complement to my over-easy eggs and hash browns. The biscuits and gravy were hearty and reminded me of the ones my sister used to make.

The staff is friendly and hardworking; I was promptly greeted and had my food within a decent amount of time. Considering the huge crowds (A Street has a big following) and the amount of food they put out, I was highly impressed with how smoothly the service went.

The portions are huge for $5 and there is a lot of variety on the plate. After eating there for two days in a row, I’m kind of addicted.

Whether you’re on a budget or you want to support persons with disabilities or you just have a love affair with perfectly prepared bacon, The A Street Café is a perfect “A.” And with that terrible joke, I’m off to food writer detention to think about what I did.

Rebecca Rose thinks turkey bacon is an abomination. Contact her at [email protected].

 

click to enlarge A Street Café is the spot for cheap breakfast in Santa Maria
PHOTO BY REBECCA ROSE
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